Trades scholarships a boost for students

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@devlincolle The Invercargill Licensing Trust and ILT Foundation will continue to offer trades scholarships to Southern Institute of Technology students next year.

Trust general manager Greg Mulvey told a board meeting yesterday the success of this year had led to the decision to continue with the programme.

Funding of $40,000 had been approved by the board for 2014.

Mr Mulvey said it was only fair to do something for young people in trades because the trust contributed greatly to academic and sporting people.

He hoped the scholarships would help retain young tradespeople in Invercargill.

Students undertake a fulltime trade course at SIT will be eligible to compete for the scholarships and will be awarded on the basis of individual achievements. The value of each scholarship, which may be offered annually, is $1000 and there would be up to 65 on offer.

SIT chief executive Penny Simmonds said the scholarships were a great boost to students wanting to enter the trades.

The Government had also allocated SIT more trades training places to meet the demand for trades people being generated by the Christchurch rebuild, she said.